Lucullus

Then, when the wind served, he suddenly launched his ships and put out to sea, and by sailing in the day time with his sails reefed and low, but in the night time under full canvas, he came safely to Rhodes. The Rhodians furnished him with more ships, and he induced the people of Cos and Cnidus to forsake the royal cause and join him in an expedition against Samos. Without any aid he also drove the royal forces out of Chios,[*](85 B.C.) and set the Colophonians free from their tyrant, Epigonus, whom he arrested.

It happened about this time that Mithridates abandoned Pergamum and shut himself up in Pitané. Since Fimbria held him in close siege there by land, he looked to make his escape by sea, and collected and summoned his fleets from every quarter for this purpose, renouncing all engagements in the field with a man so bold and victorious as Fimbria.

This design Fimbria perceived, and being without any fleet of his own, sent to Lucullus, beseeching him to come with his, and assist in capturing the most hostile and warlike of kings, that the great prize which they had sought with so many toils and struggles might not escape the Romans, now that Mithridates was in their grip and fast in the meshes of their net. If he should be captured, Fimbria said, no one would get more of the glory than the man who stood in the way of his flight and seized him as he was running off.

Driven from the land by me, and excluded from the sea by you, he will crown us both with success, and the much heralded exploits of Sulla at Orchomenus and Chaeroneia will cease to interest the Romans. And there was nothing absurd in the proposition. It is clear to everyone that if Lucullus, who was close at hand, had then listened to Fimbria, brought his ships thither, and closed up the harbour with his fleet, the war would have been at an end, and the world freed from infinite mischief.